


shake your hair have some fun

by sternenrotz



Series: broken hearts hurt but they make us strong (queer horror verse) [16]
Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: Clubbing, Coming Out, F/M, First Meetings, Gen, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5589400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dilys meets Joe at the Junk Club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shake your hair have some fun

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Bros" by Wolf Alice.
> 
> set in late 2003. as always: Rhys is a trans girl and her chosen name is Dilys, Joe is a trans boy.

Dilys meets Mullet Boy when it's two or three in the morning and it's the last Junk of the year where she feels comfortable wearing a sleeveless dress. She's got Oliver in charge of the turntables right now, and he's playing some obscure girl group single that she can't place immediately. That's when Mullet Boy catches her eye.

Technically speaking, she's pretty sure she saw him at the last two Junk nights as well. She picked him out from the crowd a couple of times earlier tonight, too, watched him conduct awkward social situations and vaguely dance into the direction of some girls without ever truly dancing _with_ them. He's kind of cute, though, underneath the unfortunate haircut and the more unfortunate plaid flannel, a little younger than her, maybe.

Mullet Boy doesn't seem to mind when she slides into his space to dance with him, either. Dilys gives him her brightest smile, the big 1000-watt one that only comes out when she's tipsy. Which, to be fair, she is. Mullet Boy smiles back, crooked and awkward but very genuine. It's easy.

He's a bit shorter than her, especially with the little heeled chelsea boots she's wearing. But still, he's good at dancing, like that's his way to make up for being socially awkward or something. Dilys swivels her hips and snaps her fingers at the appropriate parts, and Mullet Boy mirrors the movements perfectly. She really hopes Oliver's going to keep playing songs like this, the light, flirty kind.

By some miraculous intuition, for once he actually does what she wants and plays at least five girl group songs in a row. So Dilys just keeps on dancing with Mullet Boy.

A Ronettes song is playing when she decides that maybe she should go the step further. They’ve found a rhythm by now, fitting into the spaces made by each other’s bodies. The distance between their faces is so small to begin with, so she leans in.

The music booms around them when she says, “Hey. Hey, come here.”

She bats her eyelashes and all. Except when Dilys leans in for the kiss, Mullet Boy freezes up and pulls back, which is… definitely not what she’d expected.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

She takes in Mullet Boy’s frightened wide eyes, which are really _weirdly_ blue, and she tries her hardest to keep her voice bright and cheerful. It’s not about her.

“Don’t you like me after all?”

_It’s not about her._

“It’s not,” Mullet Boy starts. His voice is higher than Dilys would have expected it, but it suits him and the softness of his face just fine. A bit of a late bloomer, is he. “It’s not that, but…”

Dilys moves in that bit more so he can speak right into her ear.

“I’m trans.”

That’s, okay… that’s definitely not the reasoning Dilys would have expected. She _especially_ wouldn’t have expected Mullet Boy to just blurt it out like that.

She says, over the boom of the music, “Okay.”

Judged by the way Mullet Boy is still staring at her, it’s anything but _okay_ .

“Relax, okay? Come with me.”

Mullet Boy continues to look terrified, but he follows her when she weaves her way through the crowd and towards the entrance. The door clanks shut and blocks out much of the noise.

Dilys asks, “Okay?”

Mullet Boy shakes his head.

The way the club’s set up, there’s a little landing at the bottom of the stairs where the register normally is. It’s an impromptu cloakroom that’s not really big enough to be a proper cloakroom, just a few square feet of floor for the girls to drop off their purses and coats. Dilys makes a gesture she hopes is obvious to the girl who keeps watch over everything, and then it’s only the two of them.

“Here. Have a seat.”

Mullet Boy doesn’t have a choice in the matter, though, because Dilys is pressing him onto the chair there before he can say anything.

“Okay,” Mullet Boy says.

“Calm down, okay? Do you want a drink?”

Mullet Boy shrugs. “Okay.” He’s like a broken record.

Dilys is going to grab Mullet Boy a G&T, and a bottle of water, too, and get her jacket and purse from behind the DJ pult. She’ll tell Oliver to take over the situation, because… well, she doesn’t really know yet where _th_ _is_ situation is headed. Just in case.

So she does.

“Here you go,” Dilys says when she made it back out of the club.

She hands Mullet Boy his drink.

“Cheers.”

Dilys is careful when she squats down on the floor across from him, pulls her skirt into shape, and she passes the water over as well.

“I never got your name,” she says when Mullet Boy has set his glass onto the register counter and popped open the cap on the water bottle.

“Yeah, it’s…” Mullet Boy starts. It’s the first _real_ thing to come out of his mouth since that revelation, his voice still shaky with nervousness. “ It’s Joe.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Joe.” Dilys makes a point of smiling again, and she hopes it’s at least a little comforting.

“Thanks,” Mullet Boy, Joe, says. “It’s nice to meet you, too, you’re the DJ, right? Spider?”

“Yeah, I am.” Dilys extends her hand for Joe to shake it. “But you can say Dilys.”

“Okay.”

“Great,” Dilys says, and she puts on her best socialising smile again. “So, Joe. Where’re you from?”

“Suffolk,” Joe says.

His voice seems _much_ squeakier now that he’s no longer shouting, actually, or maybe that’s just the nerves. He sips his G &T through the straw.

“I just come down here to go to Junk nights.”

“You come here a lot?”

“I went to the last few ones. It’s just nice,” Joe says and fidgets with his drink, “You know, to be somewhere people don’t know you and you can just be yourself, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” Dilys says, in the most genuine way possible. She smiles, and she wonders if Joe’s figured it out yet. “So, do you… Do you have some place to stay tonight, or are you just…?”

“I just stay here until I can get the first train back home, normally,” Joe says.

Dilys pulls her phone from her purse to check the time, half three, still several hours until the trains start running again. Joe doesn’t look like he’s truly willing to spend another couple of hours at the club judged by the expression he’s still got on his face.

“Tonight, too?” she asks. “I mean, you don’t have to, you can kip at my flat.” When she realises that sounds less concerned and more flirtatious, she adds, “On my couch, if you want?”

“You serious?” Joe asks back. “I mean, it’s… It’s whatever, I don’t want to bother you or anything.”

“You’re not _bothering_ me,” Dilys insists.

Really, he isn’t. Maybe only a little bit, but that’s outweighed by his general helpless demeanour and the fact that she can’t possibly leave him be his awkward trans self without knowing she’d end up feeling bad for it.

“I wasn’t even going to stay that long, I’ve got a deadline on Tuesday so I really need to work on my essay for uni.” At least the second part of that sentence is true.

“Okay,” Joe says.

“Okay.” Dilys picks herself up off the floor, still just as careful as before, and she asks, “Did you bring anything? A jacket?”

“No, I’ve got all my stuff in my pockets.”

“Right.” She makes a point of smiling again and says, “Men’s jeans, big pockets.”

Joe returns her smile with an awkward contortion of his facial features that’s presumably also supposed to be a smile. For a moment, Dilys wonders if she’s gone too far, but Joe doesn’t say anything to prove her right.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

Outside is dead quiet save for a handful of clubgoers on a smoke break. Dilys waves goodbye to two girls she vaguely recognises, the night quiet and cold and chilly with the seabreeze. She lights a fag and leads Joe up the road towards the station, the taxi pickup point. Even though it’s maybe ten minutes to walk, tops, she already regrets her choice of outfit when they’re halfway up the road. The goose pimples crawl up her bare arms under the leather of her jacket, and up her legs through the flimsy material of her tights, and she involuntarily hugs herself tightly.

“Cold?” Joe asks.

“Just a little,” she says back, and then she realises she should maybe be a bit more polite towards her guest. “You want a smoke?”

“Not right now, cheers.”

Joe sniffs, even in his stupid plaid flannel that looks decidedly warmer than Dilys’ mod dress. It only serves to make him look even more like a vulnerable small child. A small child with a stupid mullet.

“How old are you, Joe?”

“Seventeen.”

Joe sniffs again and starts digging inside his pockets, and Dilys fishes for the pack of Kleenex she’s got in her purse.

“Tissue?”

“Yeah, cheers.”

Joe blows his nose, and Dilys politely looks away.

He asks, “do you mind?”

“What, your head cold?”

“No, not that,” Joe says back. He stuffs the tissue into his pocket and Dilys pretends not to see. “Me being seventeen?”

It takes a second before it clicks. Then Dilys says, “What? No.”

“I’m just asking. If it could get you in trouble, or something…”

“I’ve been sneaking into clubs since I was fourteen, so… don’t have much room to talk.” She puffs her fag again and says, “You should relax. If you can.”

Joe does an uncomfortable shrug and makes a vague _ech_ noise.

Dilys can’t help it, she laughs at him again. “And I’m twenty now. If you’re going to ask.”

“Yeah, I was.”

They both laugh at the same second, and that’s the taxis just across the street from them. Dilys pushes the butt of her fag out with her boot before she goes to approach the first one. She gives the driver the address to her flat, before she and Joe crowd into the backseat of the cab. It’s one of the old, stuffy cars, the leather seat sticky underneath her thighs. Her knees push up against the backrest of the shotgun seat, and the car stereo plays BBC Two.

Dilys asks the driver, “sorry, could you turn the radio down?”

Which he does, so she can turn over as good as she can and focus back on Joe.

“So.”

“So,” Joe says, “I didn’t really bring that much money, just so you know…”

Dilys has to cut him off. “No, no. It’s okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” Joe says, and he folds his arms over his chest. “Sorry, I just don’t… don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“No, I swear, it’s okay,” Dilys repeats. “I don’t mind paying the fare for you.”

Joe says, “Okay,” in his tiny voice, and then asks, “D’you have another tissue?”

“Yeah, here.”

“Cheers,” Joe says.

He blows his nose once again. That’s when Dilys remembers the Lozenges she keeps in her bag as well.

“Do you want a cough drop, too?”

“If you have any.”

“Yeah,” Dilys says, and she digs the packet out from the inside of her purse. “Here you go.”

She drops one tablet into Joe’s open palm, before she pops one into her own mouth, too.

“Thanks.” Joe hugs himself tighter and sniffs into his tissue once again. “You’re being really nice to me.”

The way he says it, it’s not so much disbelief as it sounds like he’s wondering _why_ she’s doing this, whether she’s got any ulterior motive for it.

“Of course I am,” Dilys just says back. “That’s what I do. Being nice to people.”

She gives Joe another big smile, feels the candy on her tongue and under the roof of her mouth, and she contorts to fold her legs one over the other in the cramped backseat space.

“Sure is crowded in here,” Joe says, and he lets out a nervous laugh.

His face is _so red_ , Dilys only notices now, he’s about to explode. Still, she makes an effort to laugh back.

In an attempt to relieve the tension, she asks, “So, what kind of music do you like?”

Joe says, “I don’t know, I guess I like northern soul. Soul in general, and garage and early punk, and some eighties stuff, and britpop, and…” and he trails off like he’s trying to think of more genres.

Dilys feels like she managed to loosen him up, if only a little. “Junk Club music,” she says, and she smiles.

“Yeah.”

“D’you like psychedelic rock stuff?”

“I guess,” Joe says, with that undertone in his voice like he isn’t quite sure himself. “I’ve never really searched it out, I mean, I never got around to it.”

Dilys only barely contains herself enough to not slap her hand right onto Joe’s arm when she says, “You _need_ to.”

Maybe her voice comes out sounding a bit too ecstatic, too. Joe just gives her his terribly awkward smile, so she doesn’t make an effort to stop herself.

“I can tell you some artists you need to check out. Or I can let you borrow some records if you want, do you have a record player?”

“Yeah,” Joe says. He still seems a bit nervous when he says it, but it’s distinctly an _excited_ nervousness. “I’ve got my mum’s old one, I don’t know if it’s very good, though.”

“D’you know what make it is?”

Then, the conversation’s just easy enough that Dilys only notices the taxi’s pulled up to her building when the car stops and the driver turns back to face the two of them. She pays the fare and twists her way out of the backseat, and when she stretches out her hand to help Joe out of the car, he accepts it.

What Dilys knows about Joe so far is, his record player is some obscure make from the 80s, he says. Not a Michell or a Linn Sondek or a Pink Triangle, but he’s not had any problems with it, apparently. He’s got a small but growing record collection, mostly charity shop and boot sale finds with two Blur records as the centerpiece. His favourite member of the band is Damon, back when he was still fit, but he missed out on that time they came to Southend, sad enough to say, because he was about twelve at the time. He’s in his last year of sixth form college, and he’s too busy revising for a job right now, but he wants to study illustration later on.

By the time Dilys unlocks the door to her flat, Joe’s the one who asks the questions.

“So what do you do?” he asks when she manages to actually push the door open. “Other than being a DJ, I mean?”

“I’m in my last year of studying fashion,” Dilys says back. She peels herself out of her coat and puts it on the rack, purse on the doorknob. “And I make bagels part time, so yeah.”

“Bagels?” Joe repeats.

“Yeah, I work at a deli.” She laughs, now that she’s facing Joe where he’s awkwardly standing on the carpet, and she casts a glance over towards the couch. “You should have a seat.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll go put on the kettle, yeah?”

Her flat’s set up as one big room, kitchen and dining room area separated from the living room area by the counter. Still, when she goes to pour the water and pick out the mugs and tea bags, Dilys can’t see Joe’s face, or whether he’s blushing anxious again.

“What do you drink? Black, green, red fruit?”

“Just regular,” Joe says. There’s the sound of a sniff as he blows his nose, again, and the TV zaps on. “Black.”

“Okay. How d’you take it?”

“Two sugars and milk.”

The channel that’s on is playing music videos. Joe turns the volume down a little ways just when Dilys laughs.

“I know it’s not _manly_ or anything.”

“No, it’s just…” Dilys stocks and hides a snort behind the back of her hand from no one in particular. “I take mine the exact same way.”

Joe laughs, short and dry. “I’m assuming this is my bed for tonight, then?”

“What?” Before he can respond, Dilys immediately continues, “No, no, no.” She actually puts the kettle on, and she says, “I’ve got a flatmate but she’s staying with her boyfriend tonight, so you can sleep in her room, if you want.”

“Okay.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds, until Joe puts the TV on mute when the commercials come on.

“Where’s your vinyls?”

“They’re in my room, for safekeeping. Don’t want to mix them up with my flatmate’s.”

Dilys laughs again and heaves herself up to sit on the counter while she waits for the kettle to boil. Once again, it’s quiet, save for the high-pitched hiss of the kettle, and the drum of her heels against the counter when she gently kicks her legs. Finally, the water steams and she can pour the tea.

“Milk in first?”

“Yeah.”

Dilys grabs two teaspoons, one to stir each mug, and she adds in two sugar cubes each and places the cups onto a tray.

She asks, “So, when did you realise you were trans?”

Once again, she can’t see Joe’s face when she maneuvers the tray over to the coffee table. After he doesn’t respond for a split second, Dilys figures maybe she went a step too far, maybe she made him uncomfortable.

“‘cause I found out when I was fifteen, so.”

Now, when she sits down on the couch next to Joe, she can see his reaction to that statement, too. His mouth drops open a little ways and his eyes pop wide, just for a few fractions of a second that he looks at her. Giving her _the_ look, that insidious one where he’s obviously trying to find something that’s _off_.

Joe says, “Oh,” and he turns towards the table to grab his teacup and hold onto it. “Are you…?”

“Yeah. I’m a trans girl.”

She smiles and _hopes_ it comes out reassuring, but she can’t quite shake the nervousness that comes with having this conversation.

“Okay.” Joe lifts his tea up to his face to test the temperature.

Dilys asks back, “Okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just.” Joe won’t stop _staring_ at her, with the same deer-in-the-headlights anxious wide eyes he had back at the club. “I would’ve never _guessed_ , you know?”

His eyes go a little bit wider, even wider than Dilys would’ve assumed is possible, and he adds, “I mean, you pass really well. I’m sorry if that was offensive.”

Dilys simply laughs at him. She goes to reach for her own mug of tea to take a careful sip.

“Thanks, I guess.” She tucks her cold feet up onto the couch and hugs her knees to adjust her skirt again, and she says, “You pass really well, too, I mean you did, until…”

“Until I did that,” Joe finishes the sentence for her. He forces out a laugh again. “Yeah, I was really nervous, you know? Not used to having girls talk to me.”

He sips his tea and adjusts himself so he’s got his feet on the couch, too. Now, they can face each other.

“I still am, I guess.”

Dilys says, “It’s okay.” She sets her tea down on the counter that the sofa’s pushed up against. “You don’t have to be, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Joe does the same and says, “I’ve only been out for like, half a year now. Everything’s really weird, still.”

Dilys doesn’t know what to say to that, but she gives a nod, which she _hopes_ makes it clear to Joe that he should keep talking.

“My mum’s not really supportive of it, and I’ve never really had any friends at school, so it’s just strange when people actually see me as a boy, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that.” Well, really, she doesn’t get it, but she’s heard enough stories about it to know what it’s like. “D’you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a sister,” Joe says. “She’s fourteen. She’s the only one who really supports me right now, I guess.”

“At least there’s that.” Dilys doesn’t manage to make it sound genuine even to her own ears.

“Yeah.” At least Joe doesn’t seem to notice it. He sips his tea again and asks, “How was it for you? Your family?”

Dilys genuinely hesitates before she answers that question. “They were… They’re really good about it, actually. Always were. So yeah.”

“Oh. Okay.” Joe hesitates, and then he says, “I mean, that’s a good thing, but…”

“But?”

“It’s just kind of weirdly _unexpected_ , you know?” Joe says, and he contorts his face. “Like, usually everyone I talked to online was always saying their parents didn’t take it well.”

“Yeah, I’m like… a statistical anomaly, or something.” Dilys laughs, a surprisingly genuine laugh. “But I was always more one of the girls as a kid, so they weren’t too surprised, at least.”

Joe smiles at her, and she can’t help but beam a big smile back at him.

“And they were really relaxed when I first told them, too, so it’s like, they probably secretly expected something like that.”

“Wow,” Joe says, in his little intimidated voice.

Dilys immediately feels bad about this whole thing again. “Yeah, wow,” she simply says.

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Yeah, I do.” Dilys sips her tea, feels it cooled down to a more manageable temperature now. “One of each. My brother was, like, nine when I came out, so he didn’t really think about it, but my sister was really excited that she wasn’t the only girl in the family anymore.”

She laughs and hopes that’s enough to relieve the tension, and Joe laughs along. He reaches for the remote from the coffee table.

“D’you mind?”

“No, go ahead.” Actually, her feet are _really_ cold, so maybe she should change into something that’s less impractical and more warm. “I’ll just go to the bathroom really quick.”

Which she does. Well, she grabs her fuzziest socks and her good cardigan from her bedroom before she does. She's not going to actually change into her pyjamas when she's got a boy sat in her living room, even if that boy is only there because he's small and confused and scared. It's just a principle. But still, she's _cold_.

When she's done changing, Dilys checks her makeup in the mirror. It’s gotten a bit messy but nothing too bad, and she wipes away a stray smudge of eyeliner with the tip of her finger. The bathroom's got shitty flickering fluorescent lights to begin with, no windows to possibly let in daylight. With the alcohol still in her bloodstream they seem that much harsher, though, the way they bring out the angles in her face and sting in her eyes. She pretty much sobered up in the direness of the situation, but like this, it's so obvious she's technically still _drunk_.  Dilys rinses her hands under the cold water once more to clear her head, adjusts one breast in her bra, and she's ready to go.

Actually, in addition to being drunk, she's also really, _really_ hungry.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Joe says back.

He spread out across most of the couch in the short time period Dilys was in the bath, but he does fold himself back up when she steps back into the room. There’s some Pulp music video playing on TV, and Dilys can't help but keep her eyes attached to it when she walks over into the kitchen. The delivery menus are pinned to the fridge, and she gathers them up.

“I was thinking…” she says without tearing her eyes away from Jarvis Cocker's weirdly attractive face. “I was thinking we should order in food.”

Joe makes a non-committal noise. “Is there anything that's still open?”

_Right_ . Most restaurants don’t deliver food at four in the morning, but Dilys still rifles through the small stack of flyers to check.

“There's, like, one place that's still open. Indian.”

Joe makes a similar noise when Dilys comes back to sit next to him once again, the menu and her mobile clamped together in one hand.

“D'you want anything?”

“I don’t know, it's…”

“Joe, I'm serious,” Dilys says, “I don’t mind paying for you, just for tonight. You’re the guest, okay?”

Well, she's got enough food in the kitchen to last her two weeks, still, and she already said she'd pop by her mum’s house sometime next weekend. So the thought of being a _good hostess_ doesn't sound too horrifying right now, especially not when Joe’s face lights up the tiniest bit.

“Okay.”

“Great. D'you want anything specific, or do you want the menu, or…?”

“No, I'll have what you're having.” Joe laughs.

“Okay.”

Dilys calls in and orders chicken Tikka Masala, twice, with both fried rice and naan on the side, and a bottle of coke along with it, since she's already at it.

“They said it'll be here in thirty minutes.”

“Cool,” Joe says. He laughs again, and it's the type of laugh that's clearly intended to release the tension.

Dilys looks over at the TV, then back at Joe. “So, what are your thoughts on Pulp?”

When their food comes, the delivery man has to ring twice for Dilys to register it and ease herself away from the sofa and the conversation. She apologises maybe too much and tips him five pounds, and she pats his shoulder and calls him a hero when he hands over the boxes of food. Joe laughs at her from the couch.

“This's yours. Here you go.”

“Cheers,” Joe says as he peels the lid off of the container.

“Wait,” Dilys says back. She gestures for him to stop, so she can get cutlery from the kitchen drawer. Since she's already in the kitchen, she asks, “Should I put the kettle on again?”

By the time Joe leaves, after they finally went to sleep and Dilys made them fried eggs along with the leftover naan for breakfast, he's got Dilys' number in his phone.

She already told him, “You know, if you ever want to talk, or if you just want to hang out, you know, just call me and I'll see what I can do, okay?”

“Okay.”

She tells him goodbye with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and it's just that. _Okay_.


End file.
